Whacky Gadgets

Technology is continuously evolving and improving. Old and awkward contraptions become smaller, sleek, and more effective. These devices are unbelievable innovations or dazzling redesigns, but unfortunately, they appear to have gone undetected. Most of these gizmos are currently readily available, and I’m currently considering getting a few of them.

Solar-Powered Water Distiller

This wonderful gizmo can turn dirty, or even seawater, into drinkable water without using any power or solar power and can primarily be made from basic accessible materials and no general plumber is needed. Individuals in disadvantaged locations can put the filthy water into it in the early morning, and by evening– they will have clean water.

The Universal Unsubscribing App

If you keep getting spam e-mails you just cannot appear to get rid of, PaperKarma is an app that lets you take an image of spam you manage mail, and they will contact the advertisers and unsubscribe you from their newsletter.

Tiny Wireless Earphones

Wireless earphones have actually been around for a while now, but these small ear-buds take the cake. The maker claims that they’re both very effective, and can work for a long time in between each charge.

Magnetic Power Switch

How did nobody think about this before? Utilize your power switch as a key-holder without harmful hooks and keep your keys where you’ll constantly find them.

Aerodynamic Umbrella

This umbrella can stand up to winds of approximately 100 km/h (or 60 miles per hour), keeping you dry and not buckling under strong winds. I’m absolutely getting one.

Laser-Guided Scissors

Having a tough time cutting a straight line? Don’t want to risk having to pay out the owner builder insurance excess if you damage your house? These laser-guided scissors are the solution.

Preventing Your Plumbing From Freezing

If you reside in a place where winter season temperature levels drop below the freezing point, you might have had the annoyance of having your pipes freeze over and even rupturing pipe and having to call an emergency plumber or make a home indemnity insurance claim.This helpful device will conserve your pipes by immediately turning off the primary valve when temperatures end up being too low.

Like any contemporary sport, basketball is continuously developing. The game that started with a peach basket and a Canadian instructor has actually ended up being America’s most played game– sustained by enthusiastic fans, vibrant characters, and thrilling playoff runs. Whether you’re talking NBA, WNBA, minors or home league, basketball is an interesting activity for gamers and viewers alike. And, one might argue, the very best is yet to come– as basketball ends up being increasingly more soaked in modern-day innovation, the developments that are being developed might alter how we view and play sports.

Although reasonably brand-new to athletic efficiency analytics, there’s certainly a sea of modification concerning basketball, and numerous professional athletes and fans are preparing to become swept up in it. Along with the increase of analytics comes a new age of tech created to determine, evaluate, and improve efficiency on a level never ever prior seen in expert sports. However prior to diving into the developments, let’s have a look at how the sport started its development and the development on the horizon.

The Analytics Movement

Considered that basketball is a fairly young sport, there are many more developments to come– ones that even James Naismith could not have realistically forecasted when he set-up that peach basket. Considering that those days of uncomfortable balls and makeshift baskets, basketball has seen a great deal of modification, including in errors like the basketballs shorts and uniforms. Since the NBA was formed from the Basketball Association of America (BAA) in 1949, professional athletes have been drawn to this hectic sport, and have revealed a strong desire to enhance their efficiency and prosper. At the end of the day, the objective for any expert group is to be the best, and get a competitive advantage by accepting innovation and development.

Take the present pattern of analytics in sports. There appears to be a dividing line in between those who believe in analytics as brand-new gospel, and those who would rather keep with an old-school method of believing when it pertains to picking players and choosing the very best lineups. Yet unlike baseball and football, basketball does not have a great deal of “old-fashioned” mindsets to make use of, and it appears to be far more open up to remaining on top of brand-new developments and patterns; let alone in its custom basketball jerseys and the like. When you consisder the youth of much of basketball’s star professional athletes, you get a market that’s far more open up to welcoming analytics as a mathematical method to prosper.

Marc Cuban is among these followers. The owner of the Dallas Mavericks is an unabashed fan of sports analytics, and is constantly fast to talk up exactly what he views as the future of the game. An ESPN.com short article quotes Cuban as stating that ““analytics have been an important component of who we are since I walked in the door 15 years ago. What’s changed is that all teams now use all the data available to them to make personnel decisions, so the market has become more efficient. We have strived to introduce new and exclusive sources of data so that we can improve performance of our players.”” This information consists of buying innovation that tracks the physical and athletic efficiency information by specific basketballers.

The Future is Now

With all the present methods to view a basketball game– tablet, smart device, tvs that supply replays as needed– the NBA is doing its finest to stay up to date with the times– and, in some locations, transcend them. In 2013, NBA divulged about the upcoming video innovation that would be set up in every NBA arena for that coming season with a cloud management platform that can be streamed on multiple devices. This modern movement capture tech would supply an extraordinary chance to collect athlete information: Throughout every NBA game, 6 video cameras will catch the position of each gamer and the ball 25 times per second. In 48 minutes of action, that’s more than 4 million overall information points per video game, all uploaded effortlessly to the cloud management system. Information being information, can be arranged, sliced, diced, minced, examined, and queried. Coaches and basic supervisors will utilize it to find out things about basketball nobody even believed to inquire about previously. The post describes this as being “NBA’s Moneyball minute.” (And sure enough, athletes are figuring the appeal of brand-new innovation– treasured free agent LaMarcus Aldridge supposedly chose not to sign with the Los Angeles Lakers since they didn’t put adequate stock in information and analytics.).

A venture fund formed by Sesame Workshop and New York-based Collaborative Fund early this year has actually made its very first investment in a tutoring platform called Yup.

Specifically, Yup (formerly known as MathCrunch) has actually raised $4 million in a seed extension round led by Collab+Sesame, where Sesame Ventures is a limited partner, bringing the company’s overall capital raised to this day to $7.5 million.

Yup links students with tutors online, through its site and native iOS and Android apps. The start-up is particularly concentrated on math and science education. Its service targets trainees who are 13 years old and up, and takes on STEM subject matter from high school through university.

When Yup is first opened by a student, a bot briefly interviews them to establish exactly what subject and level of online tutoring aid they need to match them with an ideal tutor. Then they are directly linked to a tutor for homework and examination preparation assistance, via direct messaging.

In the U.S. market alone, online tutoring services abound, including Chegg, CourseHero, eNotes, GotIt, University Tutors, Wyzant and Tutor.com. Yup CEO and founder Naguib Sawiris stated his startup is distinct from these, in part, due to the fact that its sessions are peer-reviewed.

Most platforms take into consideration ratings from consumers, meaning students or moms and dads who purchased a tutoring session for them. However on the Yup platform, tutoring sessions are taped and evaluated within 48 hours, anonymously, by other skilled tutors.

A reviewer provides feedback to Yup about how well a mentor tutor was able to assist a student to understand concepts in any provided session. This peer-review technique belongs to exactly what guarantees tutors on the Yup platform do not simply distribute research answers in a subject trainees may be grappling with.

Sawiris stated that “we hold our tutors accountable to actual learning. There are too many cheat sites out there that just give students the answers and don’t care about learning,”

As a condition of raising this capital from Sesame Ventures, Yup is dedicated to developing and selling services to charter schools and districts, which can disperse online tutoring aid to students who require it, however whose families can’t pay for the extracurricular expense.

Financier Craig Shapiro said one factor that contributed to Collab+Sesame’s backing of Yup is the marketplace chance, or need for this sort of service, in the United States

“Across public schools class sizes are larger, teachers’ attention is eroded, and curriculum quality has degraded. But tutoring is still largely happening offline. It’s like taxis before Uber. Nobody had cracked the nut on how to deliver learning, and not just give away answers online” the investor said.

He continued to state that Yup is doing this in a manner that’s not just reliable, but makes tutoring more budget-friendly and available than having a teacher come to your house. From his perspective, Yup’s competitors are not the other online players in the market, but instead the fragmented market of offline tutoring services. Yup offers a new way of knowing and a chemistry tutor online, mathematics instructor or engineering lecturer can all be easily accessed through digital platforms.

GE Healthcare is releasing 25 brand-new products, services and digital options at RSNA 2016, HALF more than in 2015, as the business concentrates on assisting the health care market to improve outcomes. The brand-new innovations and collaborations are created to attend to some of the market’s most important challenges and will allow much better client experience, improved clinical confidence and increased efficiency.

For the first time ever, mammography exams can actually be in the hand of the client with a remote control that changes breast compression. This ingenious, self-compression function for the brand-new Senographe Pristina allows the client, with the help of a technologist, to set the pressure that feels right for her, helping to minimize discomfort and resolving among the main issues ladies have for preventing mammography screening.

“We’re devoted to improving results for our customers and the market. Senographe Pristina is a terrific example of how we are purchasing innovation to enhance patient experience and, therefore, lower the possibility of avoided mammogram screenings,” said John Flannery, president and CEO of GE Health care. “We’re excited to launch a wide variety of brand-new items, digital and software application innovations focused on improving performance, medical outcomes and productivity for medical facilities and clinicians worldwide.”

To that end, GE Healthcare reveals the basic accessibility of the Centricity Imaging Cooperation Suite, a suite of applications that makes it possible for dispersed care teams to see, manipulate and share images beyond their department and beyond their health center’s walls. Built on the safe and secure, scalable GE Health Cloud, the option helps dispersed care teams team up on client cases, reduce CD managing costs and time invested preparing for multi-disciplinary conferences, and reduce repeat imaging.

GE Health care is announcing several new functions and enhancements to Centricity Solutions for Business Imaging. Among the most significant updates and a software testing course is the development of Integrated Relevant Clinical Content (IRCC) to Universal Viewer. IRCC provides pertinent clinical info, consisting of EMR and lab information, radiology reports, client history and pathology information straight to the radiologist within the existing workflow. With an algorithm that discovers as radiologists offer input, physicians will have the ability to more quickly reach a positive diagnosis based upon a more complete image of the patient’s health.

Samsung has actually preferred Android over Microsoft’s Windows os in its Galaxy line, but the two kissed and made up for the TabPro S, offering exceptional IT consulting services to customers. It’s a 12-inch tablet that utilizes Windows 10 and looks incredibly like Microsoft’s own Surface 4, but it also includes an AMOLED screen, with a pixel resolution of 2160 x 1440– a better than 50 percent improvement over standard high-definition TVs. And it boasts a battery life of 10.5 hours.

Sengled Boost

Having difficulty with Wi-Fi dead zones in your home? Sengled’s Boost is an LED light bulb that is a huge technology innovation. It looks like it’s an emergency lighting fixture, but serves as a Wi-Fi extender, letting you surf the web at faster speeds, even in those areas that normally have you cursing at your phone, tablet or laptop computer.

D-Link AC3200 Ultra Wi-Fi Router

Connection speed is crucial when you’re working online, and there are few modems that can compete with the wifi speed of D-Link’s AC3200. With 6 antennas, it likewise gives you a broad variety of protection. It more looks like a spider than a router– and it’s not low-cost– however it will guarantee that you’re able to access the web and send out and get files at the fastest speeds possible.

Dell UltraSharp 30″ Ultra HD OLED Monitor

Unless you’re working in high-end video modifying or design, odds are you don’t actually require this screen, but once you see it in action, you’re definitely going to want it. It’s huge enough that you can open several windows with ease. The 4K resolution is beautiful. And the added clarity from the eye-popping OLED (natural light-emitting diode) screen (which has considerably better color quality than other screens) will blow you away. So will the price tag unfortunately.

Plantronics Voyager Focus UC headset

In a perfect world, you’re at your desk throughout a call. In the real life, you typically need to stray, however, you cannot let anybody know that when you’re at an office tending to an IT support call.The Voyager Focus UC headset lowers sound distractions no matter where you are and lets you walk up to 150 feet away to look after whatever emergency situation has actually surfaced (even if it’s simply the pet begging to be let outside or you’re wanting to be at the tech and innovation event across the road…. this may of been the case for the author).

Since October 2015, a sophisticated hacking group being nicknamed ‘Lazarus’, have accessed the interbank communication network called SWIFT. SWIFT is a worldwide network that settles transactions.

‘Lazarus’ are targeting international banks and they have just recently claimed their fourth victim, a bank in the Philippines.

The hackers first broke into the network security at Bangladesh’s central bank and stole $101 million. Similar attacks then happened on private banks in Vietnam and Ecuador.

The other day, Symantec revealed that hackers got into a bank in the Philippines and used the same computer virus. The name of the bank was not released to the public.

The technical director of Symantec Security Response, Eric Chien, said that the banks desktop computers were infected by the hackers. However, they still aren’t quite sure if they managed to move any money or even how they slipped in, in the first place.

Researchers examined the bank attack in the Philippines and they found that the complex code used shared distinct properties. It was specific instructions written in the same words and the code that was used to attack the Bangladesh Bank.

This specific code has been traced to a group of hackers that the researchers worldwide have nicknamed ‘Lazarus’. However, it is still unclear on who these hackers are but there are definitely clues.

These bank attacks aren’t the first lot of attacks that the ‘Lazarus’ group has done. In 2009, they attacked the finance and media websites of South Korea and America. In 2014, Novetta, a cyber security firm, documented how Sony Pictures was also hacked by the same group. They apparently stole data and destroyed computers at the movie studio in Hollywood.

The U.S. government, however, accused the military government of North Korea to be behind the attack.

There is now a worldwide concern that this hacker group has the ability to attack the global financial system. Gottfried Leibbrandt, the CEO of SWIFT, said that these hackers are in a position to bring down numerous banks around the world.

Banks around the world, big or small, need to act with caution and it is a good idea to invest in security services to make sure you are well protected.

The year 2016 has kicked off already with a plethora of stunning new tech gadgets that will take your breath away. With countless hours spent under the heavy industrial lighting and getting moved around the shelves by slab scissors in the manufacturing warehouses, going through vigorous testing before being released to the public, here is just a taste of what the tech industry has up its sleeve for 2016.

1. Sony Xperia Ear (Bluetooth headset)

The Bluetooth earpiece has always been seen as that ugly piece of plastic sticking out of people’s ears, which has the connotation of the person disengaging with the people around them. Sony is trying to bring this back with the intention of making it the new trend, with the in-ear piece now looking smaller and more sleek in design.

This newly updated piece of technology now acts as a personal assistant, who can give you directions, the weather, latest news and social media updates on the run. Sony utilises the latest version of its own voice command software, which has undergone vigorous software testing, instead of using the built in Google voice assistant.

2. Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge

When compared to its previous versions, the newly refreshed design of the Samsung S7 and S7 Edge have replaced the plastic flimsy body with a sturdy metal encasing with an attractive glass finish. The fan favourite features are still a major design draw card with water proofing and memory expansion options being incorporated into both of these designs. However, the most crucial feature this new mobile offers is its battery life, which is significantly better than its predecessors, not to mention the stunning 360 degree camera on offer.

3. Cat S60 Thermal Camera Phone

Now this piece of technology will literally blow your socks off! This ‘thermal imaging camera’, I mean, thermal imaging phone has a thermal imaging camera built into it, which is stunning! This is the ultimate tradesman phone. It can check temperatures of objects that you aim it at, is great for spotting hotspots and can be used in emergencies like fires.

This phone is waterproof for up to five metres, so if you accidentally drop it on the pool paving and it bounces in the water, don’t fret! It is also shock proof and is even said to comply with the specifications of the United States military for heat, salt, shock, dust and all of the conditions a serviceman would encounter in the line of duty that your regular phone wouldn’t cope with. This is the ultimate hulk of mobile phones and with countless hours with IT consulting experts, this phone is finally ready to take off!

4. LG G5

Trying very hard not be outcompeted by its competitor, LG has launched which is arguable its most risky venture in its history, with the Android operating system. The new sleek metal body, fingerprint scanner on the rear of the mobile, 5.3 inch quad HD screen and the new 6.0 Android operating system to take the new phone to the next level.

Unlike anyone has seen before from a mobile phone manufacturer, LG’s G5 features a removable bottom, which opens up the opportunities for owners to customise the phone to their liking. This feature offers the opportunity to add even more battery power to power all of the street lighting in your suburb! Well, maybe not your suburb, but the added power will definitely be a welcome feature. This will allow for add-ons to be inserted into the bottom of the phone to suit the individual user.

Despite all our achievements as a race, we’ve never discovered a storage medium that is immortal. Tapes, CDs, film … they all fade with time. The hard drives we use and the digital history we create is at risk of disappearing in the sands of time

But thankfully, researchers at Southampton University are here with a solution: a quartz hard drive that can last 14 billion years and store 360 terabytes.

Given that that’s long, long after the sun will have consumed the Earth, it’s possible that the tiny optical disk could outlast humanity, so we might as well put the next Golden Record on it. The tiny discs are etched with a nanoscale laser in a microstructure about five microns tall, with each pulse creating a series of three lasers. By reading the polarized light passing through the discs, the massive treasure trove of data can be revealed.
The university is calling it the “Superman memory crystal.”The Large Hadron Collider produces about 30 petabytes of data annually, or about 30,000 terabytes or about 83 of the Superman discs. The internet is estimated to be 74 terabytes (last checked in 2009) by the Library of Congress. Approximately 200 GB of information is stored in human genomes, meaning with 9 billion people on Earth right now, there’s 1.8 trillion gigabytes or 1.8 million petabytes of data to save, which translates to 5,000 of these quarter sized discs.

Therefore to build the ultimate human time capsule, we will need a large warehouse stocked with these disks that has strong thermal protection and is buried very deep underground. If we get to work with the massive task of storing all of the data into a new Library of Alexandria. Regardless, these definitely have a few billion years worth of advantage over using DNA hard drives.

Fully Charged Handsets are Coming from the Future

Running out of juice while you’re running around town is the scourge of the modern day smartphone owner. Smart shoes could be the answer though, as boffins at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a pair of sneakers capable of recharging your phone as you walk.

Kinetic energy is generated through repeatedly placing one foot in front of the other foot, this innovation is being called ‘bubbler tech’ and is the main mechanic behind Dubbed InStep NanoPower.

A high-tech sole fitted with a pair of flat plates separated by a small gap filled with a conductive liquid make up the shoe. At 10 watts of energy for every square metre covered; the shoes can create up to 5 times the energy required to charge a typical phone

Sure, they’re not the most stylish of kicks and they feature a platform sole that would bring Tom Cruise up to an intimidating height, but they’re a starting point. A sign of the walking, charging future. Sadly, this is just a prototype and the tech is a long way from being commercialized; you cant actually buy them. But with any luck, we won’t have to wait too long before someone figures it out, and slaps this tech in some slightly better-looking shoes.